Business Overview

Accor, the world’s largest hotel and tourism group, operates six exclusive French Polynesian resorts under the Sofitel and Novotel brands on the islands of Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora and Rangiroa. These properties offer the ultimate in luxurious and romantic accommodation, including a private island.

The Challenge

Accor French Polynesia had zero presence on the major Search Engines for their recently launched portal at www.accorhotels.pf. Starting from scratch and operating in an extremely competitive market, they wanted to secure higher Search Engine rankings for their portal for targeted keyphrases aimed at high-end vacationers and the honeymoon market. Of particular importance was securing rankings above other luxury resorts in French Polynesia and hotel booking agency websites.

Whilst Search Engine Optimization work was underway, Accor French Polynesia wanted to immediately drive more pre-qualified traffic to their portal by using banner advertising and Pay-Per-Click. Again, this was to be targeted at the high-end travel and vacation markets. The ultimate goal was to acquire more online bookings via the portal.

Inetasia Solution

Accor French Polynesia operates in a fiercely competitive market, with many other well-optimized websites trying to gain high rankings for the same keyphrases. Inetasia’s Digital Marketing division conducted thorough research into keyphrases to ensure optimization was carried out for those which would drive the most converting traffic. Inetasia then designed and implemented an integrated Digital Marketing campaign that incorporated a balance of on-site and off-site optimization, paid directory listings, online press release submissions and Web 2.0 media syndication.

At the same time, Inetasia implemented a campaign of banner advertising and Pay-Per-Click on luxury travel portals and Google to help generate immediate inline bookings. Inetasia’s services included keyphrase analysis and research, banner design, media planning and buying and campaign management. Inetasia also made adjustments to the Accor French Polynesia portal to improve its Google quality score and so reduce the average campaign cost per click.

Inetasia used Webtrends, the world’s leading web analytics solution, to track results of all activities. Inetasia also used two of its proprietary tools for Webtrends integration during the campaign. Webtrends SDC tags were inserted into banner ads and PPC text ads using Site Manager Converter, which inserts tags automatically without the need for manual tagging. Ads were served using Site Manager Syndicator, a campaign serving solution fully integrated with Webtrends that allows for automated reporting from impression to conversion.

Conclusion

The results of these campaigns were immediate. Within two weeks there was a rise in organic Search Engine listings, with listings being gained in the first and top 5 positions on the major Search Engines. Press release submissions and Web 2.0 Media Syndication also performed well: a single press release was viewed over 51,000 times, and a single article was syndicated by almost 800 websites and Web 2.0 channels.

The PPC and banner campaigns also performed well, sending high levels of pre-qualified site traffic and generating online bookings. Inetasia’s adjustments to the Accor French Polynesia portal secured improved Google quality scores for keyphrases included in the campaign, which resulted in cost savings of up to 88% from initial Google cost-per-click estimates.